The sight leaves his eye, as he cries, with a sigh,
“Dance light, for my heart it lies under your feet, love!”
John Francis Waller, LL.D. (1809–1894).
FATHER TOM’S WAGER WITH THE POPE.
“I’d hould you a pound,” says the Pope, “that I’ve a quadruped in my possession that’s a wiser baste nor any dog in your kennel.”
“Done,” says his riv’rence, and they staked the money. “What can this larned quadhruped o’ yours do?” says his riv’rence.
“It’s my mule,” says the Pope; “and if you were to offer her goolden oats and clover off the meadows o’ Paradise, sorra taste ov aither she’d let pass her teeth till the first mass is over every Sunday or holiday in the year.”
“Well, and what ’ud you say if I showed you a baste ov mine,” says his riv’rence, “that, instead ov fasting till first mass is over only, fasts out the whole four-and-twenty hours ov every Wednesday and Friday in the week as reg’lar as a Christian?”
“Oh, be asy, Misther Maguire,” says the Pope.
“You don’t b’lieve me, don’t you?” says his riv’rence; “very well, I’ll soon show you whether or no,” and he put his knuckles in his mouth, and gev a whistle that made the Pope stop his fingers in his ears. The aycho, my dear, was hardly done playing wid the cobwebs in the cornish, when the door flies open, and in jumps Spring. The Pope happened to be sitting next the door, betuxt him and his riv’rence, and may I never die if he didn’t clear him, thriple crown and all, at one spang.